Fight Rising Prices by Building Your Own Food Bank
Published on - February 2nd, 2011 (by Donna Freedman) This post is from new GRS staff writer Donna Freedman. Donna writes the Living With Less personal finance column for MSN Money, and writes about frugality and intentional living at Surviving And Thriving.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food prices are expected to rise as much as 5.5% in 2011. Those prices aren’t likely to go back down. So why not invest in food futures, i.e., your own pantry? Put it this way: If you have an emergency fund in the bank, why not have food in the bank?
Liz Pulliam Weston calls a full cupboard “the emergency fund you can eat.” Having plenty of staples on hand makes sense for several reasons:
- You’re locked in at the price you paid, which ideally will be the sale price (more on that later).
- There’s always something to fix for supper, which can mean less temptation to order in. You can also pack your own lunch.
- If you get furloughed or laid off, you can eat from your cupboards.
Already on a tight budget? Don’t fret. If you’ve got a buck, you can build a pantry.
Love those loss leaders
Supermarkets, drugstores, and mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart want you. They want you so much they’ll sell you tuna for 33 cents a can or pasta for 50 cents a pound. Get in the habit of reading the sales flyers or checking sites like Savings Lifestyle, Coupon Mom, or A Full Cup, which not only highlight sales but also match them to coupons (many of which are available on the sites).
Look for shelf-stable items like dried fruit, ramen, pasta, peanut butter, tea, coffee and canned beans, vegetables, meat, fish, soup or fruit. If your favorite brand of pasta sauce is 99 cents, buy two or more if you’re allowed. (And yeah, I know that homemade sauce is superior — so stock up on crushed tomatoes and tomato paste, already.)
Careful use of coupons makes these sales even better. I often pay little or nothing for items like pasta, chicken broth (good for making a fast soup, or extending the homemade kind), canned tomatoes, tuna, catsup, pickles, mustard, barbecue sauce, oatmeal, cocoa mix, and vitamins and supplements.
My favorite thing to get cheaply is canned fruit, for when I can’t get to the store or for when fresh fruit is extremely expensive. Recently I paid 50 cents a can for low-sugar peaches, pears and fruit cocktail; I bought the maximum allowed.
On a super-tight budget? Try to get at least one extra item every time you shop. Almost everyone can come up with an extra 33 cents. That extra can of tuna, combined with pasta, white sauce and a little cheese, could become a day-before-payday casserole supper.
Dollar days
Don’t ignore the dollar store, which may feature some hot food deals along with the plastic colanders and clown figurines. Your mileage may vary, since not all dollar stores are created equal. But some of them offer rice, dried fruit, jam, canned tomatoes, pasta and other items.
Food blogger Billy Vasquez, aka The 99-Cent Chef, lives near a 99¢ Only store that routinely stocks frozen tilapia filets, olives, dry beans, potatoes, soy sauce, canned shiitake mushrooms, winter squash, onions, pasta and various canned goods. My dollar store isn’t nearly as good as his, but I have bought kosher salt, pasta, rice, gingersnaps and canned fruit. Also Christmas gifts — but that’s a different blog post.
Think outside the supermarket
“Ethnic” markets often have great deals on produce and spices. The Asian market a couple of blocks from me has the cheapest bananas anywhere and sells chicken-leg quarters for 79 cents a pound every day. That’s where I bought 10-pound bags of rice and of pinto beans for $6.99 — and a pound of pinto beans goes a l-o-n-g way.
The per-pound price for such items is even lower if you shop at a warehouse store like Costco or Sam’s Club. Don’t have a membership? Maybe a friend does.
I live near a Grocery Outlet store that offers a line of cheap staple foods plus an always-changing bunch of special items. You might see organic corn crackers one week, but never again. I saw one-quart cartons of organic butternut squash soup for 99 cents — much classier than chicken noodle and cheaper, too. Trader Joe’s and other specialty shops have some surprisingly low prices. For example, I’ve found cannellini (white beans) cheaper at TJ’s than in the supermarket.
Drugstores often have coupon specials for nonperishables like soup, canned fruit (especially mandarin oranges and pineapple), spaghetti sauce, nuts, mac ’n’ cheese (yes, it’s radioactive orange and yes, kids love it), peanut butter, canned fish, salt, spices and — of course — ramen. Walgreens sells a line of dried fruits (raisins, figs, cranberries, pineapple, mango) for a buck a box.
Two more offbeat food sources:
- Estate sales. The contents of the house must go, and that includes the contents of the kitchen. I’ve bought canned goods, waxed paper, aluminum foil and soap this way. In fact, at one estate sale the woman in charge just gave me the foil (a big box of it, too) and also some muffin-pan liners.
- The Freecycle Network. I’ve seen canned goods, tree fruit, surplus produce, frozen dinners and pet food offered — and you can’t beat the price.
Get a freezer
Several years ago I hooked up with “Chester,” a 5.5-cubic-foot chest freezer. He’s a good guy to have on your side: A little chilly, but utterly reliable — and frugal. My electric bill hasn’t gone up noticeably, and having more storage space lets me take full advantage of great prices.
For example, plain frozen vegetables recently went on sale for 50 cents, which means my side veggies cost 10 cents per serving. If I had a garden I’d blanch and freeze the veggies I grew; for now, I stick with gleaned blackberries and any other free produce that comes my way.
I stock up on “manager’s special” meats (99-cent-a-pound remaindered bacon, anybody?), loss-leader poultry (such as the “desecrated turkey” that cost me 25 cents a pound), cheap bread from the bakery outlet and on-sale butter to go with it. Some people freeze milk and cheese. I’ve heard of rice being frozen, either raw or cooked.
Although I don’t do much baking except at Christmas, I like having flour on hand for pancakes, white sauces, and the occasional batch of brownies. The other day I found all-purpose flour on sale, five pounds for $1.50. Into the freezer; not only does this keep flour fresh for up to a year, it kills any weevil or insect eggs that are present. (Eeewww.)
Still not convinced? Amy Dacyczyn thinks it’s a good idea. In her 1995 The Tightwad Gazette II, she suggests that a small freezer is a swell idea for singles. They allow us to shop less often, store bulk grains, freeze batch cooking, and consume “a healthier, more varied diet” — especially if your neighbors garden as much as J.D. and Kris do. (Hint: It helps if you like zucchini.)
Keep it organized
Obviously you’ll need to rotate the stock. Put new items in the back of your pantry or cupboards. To be on the safe side, write the date of purchase on the front of the item with a black marker (not a pale-blue pen).
These are not bomb-shelter rations, incidentally. You’ll be eating from the pantry all along. Once you get in the habit of watching for good sales you’ll continually replenish your stores.
Remember: The point is to stock up on stuff you’ll actually eat. It’s not a bargain if it just sits on the pantry shelf.
Grocery Outlet photos are by Karawynn Long, and come from her GRS post on saving money at the island of misfit foods.
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Hi, I just read the “Island of the Misfit Foods” post linked to by this article, and one of the links referenced for finding discount grocery stores isn’t valid anymore- gnivas.com
Any chance you could provide another source of finding these types of stores? Thanks!
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This is really great advice, what a good article! Thank you!
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Free food is definitely available if you look hard enough and hit the sales with coupons. Also there is a tasty supply of homeless people available in ever growing numbers. Slow roasted with some chipotle sauce, yummy. Of course, you might find yourself on the menu at some point.
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@Chris #28 — the best place I’ve found to buy bulk almonds is Oh Nuts! (http://www.ohnuts.com/buy.cfm/bulk-nuts-seeds). If you sign up for their newsletter, they will often have sales or discounts available around various holidays that make the prices even better. We would get 25# at a time to reduce the price, use the discount, and then rebag and freeze the nuts when they came so we had out only a lb or two at a time for snacking, cooking, etc.
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To those casting denigrations on dumpster divers:
In NYC there is a whole subculture of people called freepers, who are, in actuality, dumpster diving for food. Look it up; there is a whole methodology for doing it safely correctly, and politely. There are businesses, who knowing the freepers visit, package their items in the trash carefully, so they may easily access viable food. Of course, there are those that deliberately destroy viable food, because they think that someone eating it out of the trash somehow loses them money and god forbid they share something they cannot sell.
And for those who judge, may you not EVER be in a position whereby others may unfairly judge you based on your survival choices…or you may just reap what you are now sowing. Never say never.
While I may have yet to dive for food, there’s been many a time that elbow grease on a dumpster chair, turned into a nice little bit for either the emergency, or the emergency fund.
And if I ever need to be THAT economical as to dive for food, I know how to do it and will not hesitate–while you starve slowly and silently with your pride. Why turn it into a moral question? What’s the difference between working hard for your food by harvesting a second gleaning vs. taking a food stamp voucher from the government?
The difference is you don’t have to watch the food stamper working at survival. It screws up that image of the advanced american society. Same people who don’t like dumpster divers also kick a fuss when they get in line behind a coupon lady. This thread just applauded a coupon lady a few weeks ago so don’t turn hypocrite now.
Something about the premise works; City Harvest feeds millions on it.
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Living alone, I’m more likely to waste money than save money by stockpiling. I do my own form of this by buying staples at cheaper grocery stores when I come across them and have my car. I live downtown Toronto, all the within walking distance grocery stores are priced outrageously high relative to the stores in the burbs–to compensate for the higher property values I guess? The nearest No Frills type grocery store is far away by foot and in a very bad neighborhood to boot.
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I think if I did something like this I would need a very large lock on my food storage otherwise I’d start picking out of it rather than going to the grocery store.
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We’re also in the camp that sacrifices other things to put ethically produced food in our kids, though you can use all these great strategies just as well for organics. Even Whole Foods has loss leaders. (It’s all we’ll buy there.)
Also? Simply consume less meat. Though we’re not vegetarians per se, we incorporate non-GMO soy a few times a week, and I get most of my daily protein from a morning smoothie with protein powder. The kids absolutely love grilled marinated tofu. No kidding! Sure, pulled pork is a dream on a bun. But it’s a treat, not a staple.
Overall when we minimize our meat consumption we save a couple hundred a month. I’d rather splurge on some beautiful beans than spend three times as much for low quality beef any day.
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I noticed yesterday that rice on the commodities market closed two cents from “limit up” after closing limit up the day before.
I know storage availability varies by housing situation, but for me and my family, it makes sense to stock up in bulk on times like flour and rice. We can store them economically, and they keep for a while. Sure, we’re prob only nailing down a few dollars in savings, but we’re not buying loads of small food packages often, thus saving trips to the store and on gas.
The neighbors think we’re nuts, having a 50lb sack of rice around (in the closet), but it works for us.
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If you are in the South Southern Savers is a good website for matching stuff.
Also Couponing 101 is a good blog that does a lot of coupon matching for free.
There’s not an Aldi’s near me but we do have a Big Lots – but it’s on the othe rside of town and I usually foget to check there. Although in the past I’ve found Muir Glen tomatoes for $.50/can. All with a year left on the expiration date.
I would love to buy more free range meat, but unfortunately it’s usually priced out of my budget.
Everyone should make sure they know the coupon policy at their favorite grocery store. Mine takes “competitors” coupons and includes Walgreens and CVS (as well as Target and others). They also allow you to combine store, competitor, and manufacturer coupons on one product. Also you can use $1 off 2 type coupons on buy1Get1. Like soup is on sale 1bg1 and I have coupons for $1 off 2, that’s really a dollar off one item and with multiples that can really add up. (Online coupons you can usally print out twice or three times and I usually buy 2 or 3 Sunday papers for coupons).
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@Shash #30 – we make an effort every year starting January 1 to really eat down the stockpile. I like to have the freezer empty by the end of February (so we can unplug it from February to about July) and go through all the home-canned goods just as the new fresh stuff comes in.
This year we’re taking aim at the purchased pantry stuff too – noodles, beans, etc. I made soybean soup last week! We don’t go 100% pantry, but we do our meal planning around the pantry during this time of year when we’re not adding food from the garden and farmer’s market, and then in May when the market starts up again we have a lot of space.
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I agree with Nick (#27) and Tracy (#49): with food, you usually get what you pay for. Humanely raised meat and “healthy” food (fresh or flash frozen fruit and veg instead of canned, etc) costs more. That said, I’d offer the following two tips:
1. Homemade tomato sauce! I melt two tablespoons of butter in a pan. I briefly brown 1/2 a grated onion and 1/4 tsp of salt. Then I briefly (30 seconds) cook 2 cloves of garlic and 1/4 tsp of dried oregano. I pour in a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes and 1/8-1/4 tsp of sugar (depends on the brand of tomatoes I use) and simmer for 8 minutes until thickened slightly. Right before serving, I add 1-2 tbsp of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. It yields 4 servings and costs less than 1/2 of the cost of jar sauce.
2. Dried herbs, unless I’ve grown them. I can never use fresh herbs fast enough to justify the expense.
3. Consuming only the serving size of expensive items like nuts. I pack small bags so I’m not tempted to eat more.
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What is everyone’s opinion on warehouses like Costco and Sam’s Club?
I’m in the rewards program and share a membership with my MIL. Therefore, this year we paid under $25 for our membership. I don’t buy everything there, especially when I can find a store brand item at the regular grocery store it’s often cheaper than name brand bulk. I know I save more than $25 a year on groceries though.
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Grocery Outlet rocks!
…Though, I did notice that they had a lot more higher end stuff (organic, etc.) going into the recession than the seem to have now. I suspect that’s because people are starting to shop the highend stores like WholePaycheck… err.. Whole Foods again and thus they don’t have inventory that they need to get rid of at a GO.
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Because my husband’s (main bread winner)work is so slow during the winter season I stock up on all grocery & personal items throughout the spring, summer and fall seasons. Then I only buy what we absolutely need, fesh milk, veggies & fruit during the winter. I have been doing this for about 25 years and have never thrown out food because it has gone bad because it got lost in the pantry/freezer. Yes, some organization is required, but well worth it. This is what works for us, everyone has different needs/situations. We also plant a garden, have several fruit trees & berries and I can/freeze what we do not eat fresh as they produce. We purchase a 1/4 side of beef every spring. When I lost my job for over 2 years we cut back on the stocking up a bit, but not completely. As a child I watched my parents and grandparents stock food for the winter when often times they were snowed in for days. It just seems like a natural thing for me.
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Nice article;
We used to run a chest freezer (fairly energy efficient and new) but at one point it was getting empty so we decided to turn it off for 3month electrical billing period to see how much power it used. Result it was consuming somewhere in the realm of $250 of power a year. I don’t know what the power prices are like in the US so you might be getting a better deal on cents per KW than we do downunder.
The conclusion we no longer run it except for stock ups towards Xmas if family is visiting etc as when we divided the power cost across the savings we were able to make on the food items in the freezer it turned out we weren’t saving any money. It didn’t help that we had seriously cut down our meat intake around the same time. Saying that when we were buying half a cow (about 12months of meat) for about $2 a kg for all cuts and storing it in the freezer we were saving significantly.
Storing high price items bought very cheap in the freezer was great value, storing lower margin on sale frozen veg etc (50c-$1 savings)just wasn’t worth the freezer running cost.
Cupboard storing big on that as the cupboard costs nothing to run and is there whether full or empty.
Just our experience with chest freezers
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@Rachel – you should check out a food co op or organic store to see if they sell herbs and spices in bulk. It’s a great way to get them cheap.
The last time I stocked up I bought 5 or 6 different herbs and spices for about $3. I refill the glass jars, and I’m always buying more than will fit in the jar (I just keep it in the little bag).
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Chris@28 – Check your farmers’ market. Occasionally, I’ll find some at my local farmers’ market, and they’re much cheaper there than anywhere else. Also, Trader Joe’s often has good prices on nuts.
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Almonds answer for Chris: You can get a big bag of raw almonds at Costco for a reasonable price (can’t remember the price offhand, though). I freeze and then roast about one-third of the bag at a time.
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@ Donna — Thanks for the response with the tips
When I was a student in a shared townhouse, half my closet seemed to be taken up with food! I should return to my student ways. Under my bed would be a great place for that extra toilet paper I just bought… )
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If you are stocking up on rice, flour, pasta etc. beware of flour moths. I’ve been infested and had to throw out a fair amount of food. I now put all of these kinds of foods in glass jars, moth proof containers, or store them in the freezer until I need them.
I’d also recommend you check out Liz Pullman Weston’s link in Donna’s article as it has quite a bit of information about shelf life etc. of various staples.
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My father has been doing this for years. He has a stock pile of non-perishables in the basement that make it look like he’s prepping for the apocalypse.
My husband and I don’t have the storage space for this type of stock piling. However, we did recently invest in rubber “futures.” We hear that the price of rubber will increase this year, so we bought our next two sets of tires (all seasons and snows) even though we won’t need them until April and November, respectively. Got both sets for $650 incl shipping.
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@Rosa, #61
I REALLY like the way you’ve scheduled it… very smart.
I admit, I’m not extremely strict in my pantry purging. In fact, I’m holding back on my last 3 summer tomato sauce containers– trying to space it out over these (hopefully) last weeks of winter!
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One good thing about being married to a type-1 diabetic is that nutrition is always on the top of my mind. Even when we were working our way through graduate school, I always bought very high quality meat and vegetables, because to do otherwise was to risk his health in a major way. Diabetes care has improved a great deal since then, but we have stayed the same. Anyhow, why buy cheap cuts of meat and then watch all the fat run off it?
What we NEVER bought, and still don’t, is sweets and chips. They are budget and body killers. Our children, who are at greater risk that the rest of the population of developing type-1 diabetes, snacked on carrots, graham crackers, and cheese. Once in a while we bought animal crackers and pretzels.
I always had a well-stocked pantry and freezer. Since we get paid once a month, the first shopping trip was always to the grocery store! And we also went to the day-old bread store. Great savings!
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sorry if this post is long, however….by doing exactly what donna suggests, I feed myself, a six foot six college student and a large dog on a little over $200 per month. we eat organic and healthy foods (both on specific diets), drink wine and coffee, eat lamb, free range chicken and eggs and both salad and veg and sometimes fruit at every meal. It can be done.
At least in my area, loss leader meats and the like arent cheaper cuts, they’re the same items that were at the store the week before and the week after, just with a cut price this week. Theyre not trying to make money on the loss leaders people, they are trying to get you to buy other stuff-so dont.
Lauren I live in dallas and other than fresh milk, I am okay through superbowl weekend if I have to be (obviously I would LIKE some fresh fruit before then, but if I have to eat canned, I will live)
apartment freezers exist and are reasonable. Make space by freezing cooking items and anything else you have (like single or double servings of meats) flat in ziploc bags.
As to whether all this discounted food is unhealthy, of course not. Just as the hue and cry about not having coupons for real food is untrie. I can link to an entire list of produce and organic coupons.
As to the homemade-its relative. I make cookies with flour and sugar, I dont grind the wheat, so yes, if I didnt have acess to fresh tomatoes, I would use canned be they canned by me or del monte.
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Here’s a link to discount grocers across the US:
http://www.andersonscountrymarket.net/directory
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This is exactly how I shop, and it makes me happy to see that I’m not alone.
ALDI also has reasonably priced almonds; I can get a good sized bag there for about $3.50, and it lasts for about two weeks of regular daily munching.
Really, I think a lot of people grossly overpay for food in the USA. Among my colleagues at work, none of whom make six figures, virtually all of them shop at the most expensive grocery store in town because that store has successfully turned shopping into a highly pleasurable, identity-gratifying, convenience-filled experience. The actual prices there are scandalously high, sometimes two to three times what you can get elsewhere. Sam’s Club, Costco and the like only make sense if you really buy and use huge amounts of things, i.e. if you have a family. My hubby and I shop at essentially two stores. 1) ALDI, which is great for staples and will surprise you occasionally with more than that. (Ours has had amazing cheese lately). 2) The local “low end” grocery, which caters to the less well off in our area, but which has a spectacular meat counter. Choice KC strips big enough for 2 people for $3–$4, cheap chicken, and every imaginable part of the pig you could ever want. When I tell people we shop at these places, they typically express surprise. One colleague told me he couldn’t shop at ALDI since he needs his grocery stores to be “happy places.” Fine enough, but I’d rather pay for less happiness now and go to Europe in the summer.
When these places have sales, we stockpile, but the trick is to shelve an amount that makes sense for your household. We’re only two people, so we have a relatively small pantry and freezer, but we make use of them fully.
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This is such a good example of one of those cases where knowing yourself – and your habits – is critical. Food is one of our splurge items – we love cooking and experimenting with new things, and we like buying the best quality we can afford. For a long time, food was what blew our budget every month, because we couldn’t pass up a deal at the store, even if we didn’t need it. Things would sit in our pantry until they went bad, or we simply forgot about them. To break that cycle, we had to do the opposite of what’s advocated here – we implemented a policy that we could only buy at the grocery store what we needed to cook meals for the next three days. No more, no less. It has worked really well for us – we no longer buy large quantities, so we do miss out on savings sometimes, but we also don’t throw ANYTHING away anymore, and we have gotten our spending under control. If food is your indulgence, getting good deals on bulk items might not be worth it. All in all though, great article, and I really enjoy these pieces about finding ways to economize at home.
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Maybe it is my politics or the fact that I live in California, but I am dismayed at the reliance on big box stores and processed foods evidenced by Donna Freeman and the posters. Having read both Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and the writings of Jillian Michaels of Biggest Loser fame, I have gone almost totally organic, local and non-processed. Surprise, my food budget has gone down and the quality of what I eat has gone up. Can’t believe no one mentioned farmers markets as a great source of local, healthy food at below market prices. Bargains abound, especially as the farmers are packing up to leave.
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Estate auctions are a great place to purchase everything from cans of food,mowers,tools,stoves,refrigerator,coins,
silver ware, and many other things at a 10th of the price. I’m an auctioneer and can tell you that many people buy piles of things for a dollar, then they take it home clean and sort and have a big yard sale. One guy built a 20×30 shed and had a sale once a month, never made less then a $1000 a day. They also resale some on ebay.
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Interesting how this advice matches up exactly with something I read years ago (and continue to re-read) It is titled “The Alpha Strategy” – and it should be read by anyone wanting to understand economics. Of course, to talk about it in the open back then meant you are a kook or some paranoid hoarder weirdo.. Now it just means you were right on target and ahead of your time. :]
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@ #79 Catherine: Myself, I don’t buy a lot of processed foods. My staples are beans, rice, quinoa, vegetables, multi-nut butter, oatmeal, fruit, a little cheese, whole-grain bread, eggs and a relatively small amount of meat. Not everyone shares those eating habits, though, so I listed things like mac and cheese.
Not everyone can afford to eat organically/locally processed foods.
You and other commenters are lucky: The farmers’ markets in Seattle cost noticeably more than the grocery stores. But it’s the only time in the year when I eat fresh peaches and cherries.
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@79 Now, I don’t eat much processed foods, but some of us don’t have farmer’s markets to visit.
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I’ve been too busy to post all day but I love food and wanted to throw a couple of comments about the article. I haven’t read other comments so I apologize if I repeat something that’s already been said.
I’m all for having a food bank, and I keep staples that have carried me through hard times, but I’d be wary of depending on many cans. Cans tend to have too much sodium, tend to have overcooked/overheated contents (eg. the good oil in sardines is ruined), and some cans are lined with potentital carcinogenics. You need a balance between low cost and good health.
Dry goods you can get at the bulk section make great staples you can store, but they don’t last forever.
I eat only brown rice and buy it organic at costco by the 14lb bag, but brown rice can go rancid after 6 months, so I keep it in mason jars inside the fridge. Rolled oats spoil sooner than steel cut as the oils inside are more exposed to the air.
White rice on the other hand has been polished to its starchy core, many of its nutrients removed, but it can last for years, so if this is to your taste you could store tons of it. Watch the movie “Little Dieter Learns to Fly” to see how to store white rice under your floorboards.
Same thing with whole wheat vs. while flour: whole wheat will go rancid while white flour lives on. One possible solution to this would be to buy wheat berries by the sack and use a flour mill to dispense whatever whole wheat flour you need for the day. Flour mills can be pricey though.
Oh, also powedered milk or powdered whey makes great emergency rations for the non-lactose-intolerant.
I’ve been cleaning up my pantry this month and found a bag of cornmeal, which is the cheapest grain produced in America– it’s great cooked as a mush with a couple of fried eggs on top. Not sure about the shelf life.
And quinoa! Quinoa rules! High protein, highly versatile, quick to cook, amazing stuff.
Carrots and other roots last a long time in the fridge– so does winter squash and things like that. I bought a huge lot of butternut squash on sale in December and I’ve been cooking it since. It’s delicious.
You can also dice and freeze your own veggies, but soggy defrosted carrots are no good. I’d look into some kind of root cellar before buying a freezer.
I’d get a freezer only if I had access to a large supply of good but inexpensive meat. I’ve looked into buying my own livestock and have it butchered; but between the time, the mileage, and the custom butcher charges, it doesn’t add up to great savings. Also, the setup cost might temporarily hurt your cash flow. So I’m sticking to Costco– their chicken breasts are awesome and cheap.
Anyway, I could ramble on about food forever. Coincidentally, I found this website yesterday and her recommendations are solid:
http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2010/04/10-cheapest-healthiest-foods-money-can.html
Also, here’s an emergency menu for 4-6 people for $45 a week.
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/40dollarmenu.htm
Enjoy!
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@shash – thank you! It is really worth the effort, because it keeps us from having a layer of mystery stuff at the bottom of the freezer. And today I found coconut milk down there! Curry tomorrow, yum!
The pantry is a bigger challenge. But when the pantry’s really bare and there’s something we’re *still* not eating, it probably means we really don’t like it and I should put it in the compost instead of letting it sit on the shelf another year.
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Estate sales? I hadn’t heard of that as an opportunity to get cheap food. That’s thinking outside the proverbial box!
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great ideas! it’s nice to hear someone else voice some of them, because I would be interested in getting food at a garage sale, but maybe a little squeamish about it. Now that someone else has mentioned it, it sounds much more ok to me.
Has anyone mentioned Angel Food? Are they still in operation? I looked into it a few years ago, and decided I could do better with coupons & loss leaders, but for someone with little time or interest in that kind of thing, Angel Food might be a budget saver. We have something even better in our area, that I only found out about by word of mouth – a charity that gets about-to-expire food donated from the area grocery stores, then sells it in giant boxes, grab bag style, for $7 (fundraiser for them, and they don’t have income requirements for the people who purchase). We get all our bread this way – just keep it frozen until ready to eat – and some really deluxe things like a $40 lamb roast, as well as other basics: milk, produce, cheese, it changes daily and has to be used or frozen immediately.
The moral of the story – keep your eyes & ears open, and put feelers out, for unique opportunities in your community.
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Great comment Catherine (#79). I’m a little disappointed with this piece as the cheaper alternatives suggested seem really unappetising. I like to keep the cost of food shopping to a minimum, but not at the price of compromising my principles (not eating battery farmed chicken or eggs, for example), or endorsing multinational businesses, (buy local and independent). As a populace we’ve lost the knowledge of eating what’s in season, so consequentially food is shipped all over the globe and prices are kept down by things like employing cheap labour.
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Read labels and you’ll see that a lot of times you’re just paying for a brand name or fancy packaging. If you’re talking convenience foods loaded with sugar, salt, fat and preservatives, then I’m with ya. Small house too, but I do keep multiples of things I use regularly as when they go on sale I buy a few so I always can make something!
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To Catherine (#79) and Patrick (#88), I’ll say that I’d like to buy more organic, local food, but the bald reality is that I can’t afford to except for special occasions. We have a superb farmer’s market in my town and at one point I made a resolution to do more of my shopping there. I couldn’t sustain it, since it cost a fortune. I recall buying 1/2 lb of bacon and some pork chops from a local farmer, and paying $22 for them! We’re not poor, but we can’t pay prices like that on a regular basis. It’s just not realistic. Fruit is also ridiculously expensive at our farmer’s market. I can’t spend $8 for 5 apples, no matter how responsible the growers were. We calculated once that buying enough cherries for a pie would cost us something like $35, which is insanity itself.
Organic/local food may have good reasons for costing more, but my sense is that a lot of suppliers liberally mark up their prices beyond a normal profit simply because they can. People will pay more to feel like they’re doing the right thing, and organic/local is the hot concept in food right now. Our farmer’s market is crazily busy all year round, so clearly it’s working.
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Catherine and Pat rick, it seems to me youre making assumptions here. My two hundred a month doesnt include very many processed foods. Most of my pantry is staples-beans, rice, baking products, condiments, spices and the like. I do stock things like broth, canned tomatoes and tomatoe sauce and paste, olives, and those kinds of things. Also at least a few canned soups. My freezer does include some ready made garlic breads and many frozen veggies. Just as an example, (realizing it is not everyones taste), this week my menu will include chili made from scratch, barbecue chicken with homemade corn bread, lambchops with brown rice, shrimp alfredo (the alfredo sauce will be store bought), and homemade beef stew. All meals will include fresh or frozen veggies, fresh salad and desserts or fruits-and thats just dinner. I can assure you these are mainly healthy ingredients and as a retired gal on a fixed income I could not afford to eat like that without stocking up and shopping loss leaders.
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I shop at Whole Foods, even for organics that I could find cheaper elsewhere, because they pay their workers a fair salary and offer basic health insurance. Not only is their supply line (animals, harvesters, etc) treated better than at cheaper stores, but I’m supporting my community by standing up for a living wage. If your store is not charging a lot of money for food, its staff is probably working minimum wage; it’s a race to the bottom so that I can spend less money. Higher prices = higher wages = higher quality of life for everyone and not just the person saving money by buying cheaper stuff.
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I am lucky enough to have a large yard in which to garden. I would rather be gardening than anything else! This allows me to can & freeze a great deal of produce. I also share with friends, family and strangers!
I have a freezer in the garage that was a “hand me down” from my in laws. It costs about $20 a month to run but is well worth it. I stock up on loss leaders of all types; meat, flour, produce etc.
I have a good friend to lives in an appartment. She keeps a small chest freezer on her covered patio, covers it and uses it as a table. This allows her to pick up loss leader meats to feed her always hungry college student son. She also uses her hall closet as a food and gift pantry.
I never was much for keeping a canned good pantry until about 12 years ago. My husband’s grandfather passed away & the home had to be sold. The grandparents had an extensive pantry and no one else in the family wanted any of it so all the food came to my house. It was amazing how helpful all thise canned items were. I have been a believer ever since!
Everyone can do something to lower their food costs, you just have to find what works for your family.
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@tas
it’s great you can shop for everything at whole foods, but for a lot of people (my family included) it’s simply an impossibility. there was a time when i’d try to buy everything there because it was “the right thing” or whatever– i ended up buying groceries on credit. not a good thing.
then i have a friend who worked at whole foods– it’d a decent company by corporate standards, but it’s not a worker’s paradise by any means.
costco treats their employees right, pays well and provides health benefits even for part timers, but it’s cheaper than whole foods due to their business model (pay cash, pay membership, buy large), and you can buy a few organic products from a selection i hope will keep growing. i get lundberg organic brown rice (by the sack), bob’s red mill quinoa, costco brand organic peanut butter, costco brand organic olive oil, and other assorted products. their cheese prices i think can’t be beat. not a huge selection yet, but there are alternatives to whole foods for those who can’t afford $18 for a pint of olive oil.
also, i’ve taken a liking to walmart in recent years, in part because they are great at their own game (i do admire that), in part because of their support for universal health care (which i also favor), and in spite of their purported crimes against humanity they are starting to carry organic foods & biodegradable cleaning supplies– that’s where we buy horizon milk, seventh generation detergent, kashi products, etc. as demand increases, the list keeps growing.
in the southwest there is also sunflower market, which beats whole foods prices on a regular basis, making organic food available to people who couldn’t have it otherwise. there i ran recently into an ex-employee of my local food coop and he said he liked working at that supermarket better. there are similar local chains across the country.
and there’s also food co-ops. my local one is wonderful but overpriced for produce and packaged goods– however, their bulk section is wonderful and cheap . i would love to buy everything there but i can’t afford to subsidize them 100%. a sliver of salmon for $12? no way!
my local farmer’s markets are nice in summer, but they cater to an affluent clientele, and charge accordingly, so i’m hoping to start my own planter boxes this spring and see what grows.
the point of my long ramble is that one can diversify the sources of organic, local and pesticide-free foods to get a better bang for the buck.
granted, the organic standards are being gradually diluted as they go mainstream, but i favor the mainstreaming of organic products regardless– the more people consume them the less we poison the planet in spite of the system’s imperfections, the perfect being the enemy of the good and what not.
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During the holidays is a good time to stock up on a lot of seasonal stuff that goes on sale (stuffing mix, frozen turkeys canned pumpkin, etc)
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I do the food buying for a wilderness therapy program. We focus a lot on dry goods and staples because they are high in calories and very cheap in bulk. We buy from local place that does bulk foods and restaurant supply, it’s even open to locals as well at no mark up. For people in larger areas, find a locally owned bulk/natural foods store and talk to them about putting in a special order. The natural food store a town over charges 15% on top the wholesale price for that service. All you need to do is come pick it up.
The best way to get food cheap is to buy quantity. Go in with some friends. I’ve found organic whole wheat flour in bulk for the same price as bleached white at the store. Also a great buy for nuts, trail mixes and dried fruits. Plus you save on packaging, great for the environment.
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I love our food stock! It has saved us during layoffs, and it really comes in handy if there’s an illness. Recently I ended up in bed and my husband got hurt- on crutches- and it was nice knowing we didn’t *have* to go to the store.
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You mentioned zucchini which means that I have to share this tip!
If you have extra zucchini, wash it really well, cut it up into a few big chunks and puree it in the blender. You can pour the puree into an ice tray (or some other small, freezer safe storage) and freeze it. Then when making sauces, stirfrys, banana bread, vegetable/chicken stock or whatever else you can think of, you can pop zucchini cubes in for instant, mostly tasteless nutrition. It also helps thicken sauces and you can use it in place of half of the oil in a recipe. It’s my favorite fresh produce tip.
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My husband and I recently bought 93% lean ground beef and boneless skinless chicken breasts in bulk (30 pounds each, I believe) through a company called Zaycon foods. Then I repackaged the items in freezer bags, labeled them, and threw them in our extra freezer. The savings is worth it, and the food is healthier. We have a well-stocked kitchen, and if we needed to cut down our grocery budget for one month or more, we could get by just fine without having to sacrifice taste.
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This is what I do also for our food. My problem is that my kid eats food that is different from what we are eating.
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